Data storage devices (DSDs) are often used to record data on or to reproduce data from a recording media. Such recording media can include one or more rotating magnetic disks for storing data and a slider with a magnetic head can be actuated over the disk to magnetically write data on and read data from a surface of the disk. During normal operation, the slider floats over the disk surface at an appropriate distance or “fly height” above the disk surface due to airflow between the slider and the disk surface. This airflow is mostly generated by the spinning of the disk. A thin layer of lubricant is typically applied to the disk surface to reduce unwanted interactions between the slider and the disk.
In order to allow for more data to be stored in a given area on a disk surface, the recording density of disk surfaces continues to increase in the data storage industry. One approach to increasing recording density has been to increase the number of tracks storing data on the disk surface to result in a higher number of tracks per inch (TPI) on the disk surface.
As the amount of data stored in a given area of the disk surface increases, the distance between the slider and the disk surface generally decreases to facilitate more accurate reading and writing of the data. In this regard, current DSDs may only have a few nanometers between the slider and the disk surface. This decreased distance between the slider and the disk surface has also decreased the distance between the layer of lubricant on the disk and the slider. This has led to an undesirable increase in the accumulation of lubricant on the slider and to undesirable variations in the distribution of lubricant on the disk surface.